The 2025 Heritage Trail Quilt Gardens

"Creativity and Structure" in Goshen on Main Street

"The Sunburst" Abshire Park, Goshen

It's that time of year again, when Elkhart County plants its beautiful Heritage Trail quilt gardens all over the county. They start planting in May, opening May 30th, and the season runs through September 15th. This year there are 16 quilt gardens and 12 quilt murals. Each year that we have lived here, Sparky and her chauffeur (Eldo) make the rounds all around the county, following the handy dandy map that is provided online, which she prints out. See the map here: quilt gardens map  You can actuallly make it a fairly economical trip gas-wise, if you plan carefully!

One of Sparky's perennial favorites (haha, did you see what she did there?) is the garden at Das Essenhaus in Middlebury....This one is called "Burst of Joy"....If you drive to it in the middle of the day, or late in the day, you can stop by for a traditional Amish style home cooked meal. They have a fabulous bakery on premises as well.

Each quilt garden has a signpost telling what flowers are used and a vivid description of why the particular flowers were chosen. Unfortunately, Sparky cut off the vivid description on all the signs, focusing on what kind of flowers were used!

One of the most challenging gardens to view is the "Just Wingin' It" garden at the Elkhart Environmental Center. It's four birds and difficult to see the lines of distinction, like the birds' beaks for instance. But still, an amazing floral feat!

There are over a million blooms total in the gardens and gigantic quilt murals to see as well....

Bonneyville Mill Park mural

At Bonneyville Mill County Park, not only can you see one of the quilt murals on the big red barn, but you can see a beautiful dahlia garden just beginning to bloom in July....The garden was just beginning to show its colors when we visited.

Dahlia at Bonneyville Mill Park

Speaking of dahlias, this quilt garden at the Wellfield Botanic Gardens in Elkhart must have been planted a bit later than many, so it is just getting started. 

"Giant Dahlia"

Here are few more of Sparky's favorites--a trip to Shipshewanna to see this one at the Farmstead Inn, called "Goosetracks". 

"Goosetracks"

"Flying Swallows" at Ruthmere Mansion in Downtown Elkhart...

Can you see the "Sweetgum Leaf"  tree in downtown Bristol, IN?

It is really fun to take a road trip that lasts less than a day if you are in the area and want to see quite a few gardens in a short time span. 

And there are more gardens to be seen, these are just a few of Sparky's favorites. We highly recommend taking this road trip if you are in Elkhart County during the summer months. It's a wonderful trip down nostalgia lane to see the Amish farms, towns and small town living in northwest Indiana. There are great places to stop and shop and eat in each of the towns along the route--Elkhart, Middlebury, Goshen, Shipshewanna, Bristol, Wakarusa, and Nappanee. Hope you enjoyed today's quilt garden tour!

Riding the Vine

 The Pumpkinvine Bike Trail, that is.....In the meantime, while staying in Elkhart to await the rig repairs come August 14th, we are taking advantage of the beautiful early summer weather to do different things in the area...Eldy has been learning more about lacrosse, as his grandson is heading for the state lacrosse finals. He has really enjoyed the games, and Trevor's team is doing so well! Trevor is the tall one in the middle. The rest of Eldy's son's family is with him as well. A fine looking family!

Sparky has been riding the Pumpkinvine from Abshire Park in Goshen, all the way to Shipshewanna sometimes, but mostly to Middlebury and back, a distance of about 13 miles total. That section of the trail is about 50% wooded and it has been a real treat watching the emerging wildflowers changing as the weeks go by. 

Not only is it nicely wooded in parts, but there are a couple of challenging hills to climb and then zoom down. 

AND---there's an ice cream shop called Moody's which is about 2/3 of the way to Middlebury and it's right off the trail. They have good cheeseburgers and lots of flavors of ice cream, both soft serve and hard. It's a favorite of the Amish. Once Sparky gets her ice cream fix, she feels like turning around and heading back. Mainly because at the ice cream junction, you have to go out on the county roads for about a mile to get back to trail to pick it up again, heading on into Middlebury. Those county roads are ok, as there are probably more horse and buggies on the county road than trucks, but occasional speedsters and heavy duty construction trucks occasionally, make that portion a little more nerve wracking when they pass by. The spur to get you off the county roads and to stay on the trail is supposed to be completed by the end of this summer.

Dames Rocket

When Sparky first started riding in April, there were few wildflowers. The first to come were the spring trilliums, then the wild geraniums, the purple phlox, then the Dames Rocket flowers. Dames Rocket is confused with phlox sometimes, but phlox has five petals, and Dames Rocket has four. 

Dames Rocket is also considered a noxious weed in some states and is definitely an invasive plant. But it is really pretty!

More Dames Rocket

No wonder it is blooming prolifically for several miles along the trail!

Sparky loves the Pumpkinvine Trail because it's such a good workout, and the different habitats along the trail make it an interesting ride. You pass Amish farms and wide open spaces on the trail for a bit....

pass through shady forests....

and bike through a little bit of small town offerings along the way (Middlebury's Mooey's Ice Cream, for one), where you can stop and grab a bite to eat or get an ice cream cone.Sometimes you even see chickens who are tired of being cooped up, haha, and need to get out of the house for the day, haha....

They definitely like to cross the road, haha...

Sparky likes to inspect the different flowers up close and personal. This wildflower is called Great Waterleaf, also called woolen breeches, and it had a bee zeroing in on it.

As you come back to Abshire Park (Goshen) from your starting point, you will see one of the flower quilt gardens at the park. They have just planted another series of flower gardens this year all over in the towns of Elkhart, Bristol, Middlebury, Wakarusa, Nappanee, and Goshen, that by midsummer will fill in and make beautiful quilt patterns. It's part of a tour you can take--the Elkhart Quilt Gardens (along the Heritage Trail) and we will probably go visit most of them next month or early July when they will be at their prime. The Heritage Trail is an audio driving tour to see the area's attractions and the Amish lifestyle. You learn a LOT about this beautiful area on the tour. We did it years ago but will revisit it again in the near future to see what's new.

quilt garden at Abshire Park

No other news about the rig, other than the earliest we can get it in to be fixed is Aug. 14th, as we have said, so the wait continues.....Thank you for following along and keeping us company!

On the Trail....

There are a lot of different kinds of trails in Elkhart County...There's the Art and Earth Trail...Here's the criteria for the stops on this trail:

Each place had to be authentic and unique to the region, whether it was an Amish farm where you can stop to buy quilts and homemade jam, a luxurious South Bend bed and breakfast once the home of a famous family, or a shop in refurbished Winona Lake where artists’ creations reflect serious thought as well as whimsy. Most important of all, each venue had to be friendly, easily accessible and reflect the values we treasure here in Northern Indiana. You won’t find chains or cookie-cutter businesses listed, just one-of-a-kind shops, restaurants, museums and lodgings dedicated to the most important person visiting here…you.

and the Northern Indiana Foodie Trail. Seriously? Oh, yeah, and Sparky will check it out SOON now that she is feeling better!  Then there is the Heritage Trail, a nationally recognized tour route of 90 miles. You can pick up a free audio self-guided tour CD from the Elkhart Visitor's Center, that leads through seven communities with directional cues (whew! Sparky needs that), and fun stories about the places seen along the way.

site plaque with flower and facts information

We were here last year, so today we just decided to go looking at the Quilt Gardens which are along the Heritage Trail without the accompaniment of the CD. There are a total of 19 eye popping gardens, each showcasing a different quilt pattern in the communities of Nappanee, Middlebury, Goshen, Shipshewanna, Wakarusa, Elkhart, Bristol and Goshen. There are also 20 hand painted quilt murals in these communities as well. Each site has a plaque that tells you about the quilt pattern, a little story behind each one, and what flowers make up the flower quilt garden. For example, one of the quilt gardens is a pinwheel. (not pictured). The plaque talks about the Navajo believing that the whirling log represents the four cardinal directions. It tells why each plant variety was chosen, and that the pink sunstorm vinca plant looks like polka dotted fabric from a distance. Then each plaque has a "did you know?" fact. The same pinwheel plaque tells that the petunia originated in Argentina and was first brought to Paris in 1823.

The whole thing is very cool! If you go to AmishCountry.org, you will get lots more information on what to see and what to do if you are in the Elkhart County area and surrounding Amish countryside....

Here's the interpreted flower garden from the above pattern

We covered 11 out of the 19 gardens today...Eldy patiently drove Sparky all over the county to see the gardens and make a few other stops as well. Before we started on the tour, we stopped at the Davis Mercantile in downtown Shipshewanna, home to many fine stores like Lolly's Fabrics and JoJo's Pretzels, which are Sparky and Eldo's most favorite preferred pretzels for fresh homemade ones. Eldo had a plain one, Sparky had a sour cream and onion pretzel. It was half gone before she remembered to take a picture of it!

That place is ALWAYS busy! The line snakes down through the shop to the back of the room on a Saturday, and many other days as well....Well worth it to see the pretzels made, and have a fresh hot one melt in your mouth!

On to the gardens....Here is a collection of what we saw today...Last year when we were here, we visited the gardens in October, and they were on their last legs. This year, being July, the gardens were in their prime. Beautiful!

It was a beautiful drive today, in the eighties, little bit cloudy. Sparky was SO appreciative of Eldy schlepping her all over the county to get these photos today. Eldo is just happy his Sparky is starting to feel sparky again!

We'll see you later...in a day or two....We're gonna get busy visiting friends and family, but there sure is more to see and do in Elkhart County!